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Even though the Florida Legislature faced a shortfall of revenue needed to continue paying for current services, it passed an assortment of tax cuts that will diminish state funds even more in the future. In addition, it provided other tax breaks to businesses, continued the expansion of the tax-financed private school voucher program, and appropriated more than $100 million for subsidies for businesses promising new jobs. The reduction in funds through tax cuts and subsidies was accompanied by a $300 million cut to universities and hospitals and nursing homes, whose payments were cut for the fifth consecutive year. The dollars forgone through tax cuts could have been appropriated to lessen those and other budget cuts imposed by the legislature. > Read the report. |
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With Florida's and other states' challenge of the Affordable Care Act scheduled for U.S. Supreme Court arguments next week, the argument that the law imposes a crushing financial burden on states invites examination. The State of Florida's estimates of its costs resulting from the ACA are hyper-inflated, and they appear to have been specifically crafted to support a political position rather than provide a backdrop for planning purposes. In fact, the federal government will pay 100 percent of the costs of Medicaid expansion for three years and 90 percent or more every year of the first 10 years of the act. Meanwhile, about 1 million Floridians previously without health insurance or saddled with inexpensive or inadequate insurance will be covered. And by 2022-2023, Florida will have received an estimated $20.3 billion in additional federal Medicaid funding from the federal government. Each dollar of Medicaid expansion-related state spending over the 10-year period will leverage an additional $9.51 in federal funding, directly stimulating the economy and increasing jobs. > Read the report. |
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The Florida Legislature moved closer this week to enacting $125 million in special-interest tax breaks even as it finalizes a state budget balanced only by deep funding cuts for state universities, hospitals, and nursing homes. In addition to the business tax cuts, the legislature is considering new direct appropriations for sporting events in the name of economic development: $1 million to the Central Florida Sports Commission "for securing the Major League Soccer combine and spring training" and another $1 million for the "World Class International Regatta Sports Center" in Sarasota. Tax cuts and other giveaways reduce revenue available to meet critical state needs in public schools, colleges and universities, healthcare, and social services. Each dollar given away takes money away from those state responsibilities. They also add to the billions of dollars already lost each year through the hundreds of exemptions, exclusions, deductions, and credits in Florida's tax laws. > Read the report. |
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The Florida Legislature's years-long policy of cutting state funding for higher education while shifting more of the cost of a college education to students and parents continues. Budgets passed in the Senate and the House of Representatives again reduce state funding for universities and colleges by hundreds of millions of dollars after four years of deep cuts and despite rapidly increasing enrollment. While philosophically opposed to raising taxes or fees, legislative leaders contemplate some increases in tuition. The final amount of tuition hikes - and the overall level of cuts in state dollars for higher education - will not be known until the two chambers agree on a budget and until Governor Rick Scott, who has said he opposes tuition increases, signs it. Regardless of the depth of cuts in this session, the recent history of appropriations for Florida's 11 public universities and 28 state colleges (formerly known as community colleges) constitutes a record of disinvestment. Meanwhile, the Governor and legislative leaders trumpet college education as a key to a vibrant state economy and are asking universities to produce more graduates in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics. > Read the report. |
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Overcoming the obstacles to collecting unpaid sales tax on Internet purchases and raising additional revenue makes sense, particularly as part of a comprehensive plan to modernize the state's tax system to make it fairer to average Floridians and local small business owners. Requiring out-of-state retailers to collect the tax would level the playing field for Florida-based companies and strengthen the state's tax structure. The national solution using a streamlined sales tax agreement among the states would provide the most comprehensive and legally defensible approach to the Internet tax issue. But proposals that would offset additional revenues with reductions elsewhere would worsen existing flaws in Florida's tax system. They would miss a large opportunity to make taxes more adequate to meet needs and would put more of the tax burden on average consumers. > Read the report. |
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Governor Rick Scott and Senate and House leaders all plan to set aside far more money in reserves in the 2012-13 state budget than traditional financial practices require. The inflated reserve fund will force new cuts to health and human service programs and again shortchange public schools, state colleges, and universities. That action, combined with their refusal to consider any tax modernization proposals that would generate new revenue, will produce another budget inadequate to meet the needs of the state. Meanwhile, no public discussion has occurred about how much money should be reserved and the impact of the level of reserves on appropriations for vital public services. > Read the report. |
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The Governor's proposed 2012-13 budget calls for a $3 billion reduction in total appropriations. Key to achieving a reduction of this magnitude is a cut of more than $2 billion to the perennially targeted Medicaid program. But only about one-fifth of the funds "saved" would be state general revenue dollars. In fact, the majority of the reduction ($1.2 billion) would be lost federal matching dollars. The proposed cuts would be detrimental to both Florida and Floridians, undermining the already strained Medicaid system, imperiling access to care for the sickest, and siphoning off Florida's share of federal tax dollars out of the economy. > Read the report. |
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When the 2012 legislative session opens Tuesday, the Governor and legislative majorities will begin action based on their perceptions about the needs of the state. This report shows the reality of the condition of Florida by the numbers: high poverty, high unemployment, a low percentage of the jobless receiving unemployment insurance benefits, income inequality, and an inadequate, unfair tax structure. > Read the report. |
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Five years of Florida's controversial Medicaid Reform experiment in managed care are already in the books. From the outset, permission to operate Reform was contingent upon the state's promise that access would be protected, as confirmed through ongoing analysis of patient-level "encounter data". Yet that data and any meaningful programmatic analysis of it remain inexplicably unavailable. But alternative sources of data corroborate the mounting anecdotal reports of problems with access in Reform. In light of the vulnerability of Medicaid recipients and the barriers to access to care they face generally, these findings warrant suspension of efforts to expand and extend Florida's particular Medicaid managed care experiment to new areas and additional patient groups, pending further analysis. >Read the report. |
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